~ Reflections on life, for the most part in the form of book reviews

Tag Archives: George Monbiot

A fabulous way to end the month’s books that sits very nicely with the earlier reading of Wendell Berry and Neil Ansell. Monbiot’s thesis on re-wilding provides an exciting and hopeful look at how letting go of our need to control nature could benefit the planet, the wondrous variety of creativity that inhabits it and ultimately ourselves. He makes a strong case for letting nature run its own course and deliver an environment suited to our climate and sub-structure rather than interfere with human land management that has (sometimes unintended) negative consequences.

Monbiot writes with a level of historic and scientific rigour, that gives his thinking credibility, and personal anecdote, that allows him to write with the dirty hands of experience. His passion for the subject and for transferring his arguments from the page into reality is infectious and inspiring. The coming together of some key threads for our times, in terms of finding ways in which we can inhabit the planet without destroying it and at the same time live meaningful lives, offers genuine hope for the future at a time when it feels like we really need it.

Globally there is currently a growing issue with identity in a world that has been shrunk by technology but at the same time divided economically. Different ideologies are claiming that they can change things for the better but at the political level it feels like there is nothing radical enough to turn the tide of industrial capitalism. Governments and corporations are seeking the big answers to their big questions, but the reality is that it will be small solutions, that exclude those monolithic organisations, that hold the key.

I have found many voices, from a range of traditions and backgrounds, over recent months that have inspired me to believe in an another world and another way of human life. Increasingly I am convinced that a movement towards radical localism, in which we care for the place in which we are and all the life within it, will take us there.

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